Alchemical Empire

by NineOneThree

12: Queen of Coins Inverse (Architect of Paradise)

The six Bearers stood numbly, staring at the twisted wreck of the mare who wanted to be their new friend, the dead-eyed Nightmare. Template---Thelema---started to move forward, sending foals and adults alike scrambling in terror. The frightened shrieks of children snapped Pinkie out of her stupor first; she bared her teeth, springing at the Nightmare.

"You touch any of those foals and I break that shiny new horn right off!"

Twilight gasped, lurching forward. "P-Pinkie, no!" She watched her friend lash out at Thelema with her hooves, each time hitting a thrumming, hazy barrier of air that rippled faintly green as she struck at it. Furiously, she pounded away to no avail, shrieking in exertion and fury. "Give her back, give---her---back! You're not her!"

"Sorry, Pinkie."

Thelema's mane lashed out with a thunderous crack, catching her in the side and sending her tumbling. "Pinkie!" Rainbow Dash looked at her toppled friend, then turned her narrowed eyes on the Nightmare. "Twilight, think of something. I'll buy you some time..." She rocketed forward, pounding into the barrier and sending Thelema back a few steps; she bounced off, then came around from another angle, twisting to avoid a lash from the Nightmare's tail.

As Rainbow Dash battered away at the shielded enemy, Twilight swallowed and looked at her friends. Applejack was helping Pinkie up, and despite the distance she'd been thrown she seemed relatively unhurt. "O-okay, okay girls... we need the Elements ASAP. Fluttershy, you know where I hid them, can you fly back to Ponyville as fast as possible and grab them?"

"I-I-I don't know, I just---I'm---"

"FLUTTERSHY!"

"Ri-right, going!" The yellow pegasus took off, flying as fast as her wings could carry her. Meanwhile, Thelema had managed to snag Rainbow's rear leg in her tail and toss her away, only for the pegasus to regain her balance and regroup with her friends.

Twilight snorted, wings stiffening. "Alright, girls... we need to keep her occupied til Fluttershy's back. Hit Tem---hit the Nightmare's shield as hard as you can in sequence, maybe we can break through. Let's just hope she stays on the defensive..."

Applejack nodded, galloping toward the slowly-approaching Nightmare and lowering her head with an angry snort. Jumping over the mane swiping at her ankles, she landed behind and to the left of Thelema on one hoof, letting her momentum pivot her in nearly a full circle to add force before she bucked with all her might. The sound of impact was like rolling thunder, and Thelema staggered just a little. Applejack scrambled hastily away from a scything tail as Pinkie charged back in, mane and tail straightening as her expression turned from angry to savage. The pink pony sprung into the air, coming down with all four hooves and a scream.

Thelema's shield didn't break; it exploded outward, tossing Pinkie---or rather, Pinkamena---away to be caught by Twilight's magic. The Nightmare was crying harder now, trudging toward the five with her head low. "I'm so sorry, girls, but I have to do this. Just lie down and give up, please... don't make me do this." Suddenly, she was right there among them with a burst of wind, tail and mane lashing out. Twilight hit her right in the left eye with a burst of light, buying a second or two to leap back as Rainbow Dash shoulder-rammed her in the side.

"Hey, Princess! Maybe I'll head up to Canterlot and break some of your precious 'people', how's that sound?" Taking off, Rainbow kept herself fast but not so fast that she'd seem an unreasonable target to pursue. As Thelema spread her wings and came after her with an anguished shriek, the blue pegasus knew her plan had worked so far. She wove and spun, ducked and climbed, dove and twisted to keep her pursuer on her proverbial toes.

Down on the ground, Pinkamena had pulled a party cannon from... somewhere; Rarity was taking branches from the dead tree and hurriedly crafting them into crude projectiles with help from AJ; Twilight watched as Dash led Thelema in a crazed chase through the low sky. "Looks like she's bringing her in for a broadside here, girls. Let's make this one count."

Rarity bit her lip, then nodded; Pinkamena snorted angrily, tail flicking as she kept the neon-pink artillery trained on the grey Nightmare. "C'mon, Dashie, bring 'er in nice 'n close... Twi, Rarity, get ready..."

Dash had taken the foe into a dive straight toward her friends on the ground, then pulled up at the last second; the second she cleared the line of fire, Pinkamena pounded the ingnition key. "FIRE IN THE HOLE!"

A shell screamed out, exploding just in front of Thelema into a spray of confetti, balloons, streamers, glitter---harmless, but devastatingly disorienting. She stalled and floundered in the air, a sitting duck for what came next. Twilight let loose with a hail of magical bolts, while Rarity hurled flurries of wooden projectiles. The Nightmare screamed and veered out of control, falling behind them and tumbling.

As the dust cleared, Twilight and the others peered into the shallow furrow in the dirt and cringed; Nightmare or not, they were looking at a pony scored with burns and bleeding gashes, her hide riddled with splinters and crude wooden bolts. Milky white ichor seeped out of her wounds, and she was practically sobbing as she hauled herself up. Rarity looked like she might be sick. "Celestia have mercy..."

"Mother is merciful." Thelema dragged herself to her hooves, eyes closing. "I can't be." Her mane started to crackle with electricity, then her whole body; with a ZZZZP, her wounds closed up and any projectiles left in her flesh were reduced to dust. The volts turned outward next, lancing toward the five ponies and catching Rainbow Dash in the hoof; the blue pegasus twitched and cried out in pain, leg juddering uncontrollably. "All I can do is say I'm sorry..." She let loose another wave of electricity and downed the others in trembling agony.

Twilight recoiled as the twisted shadow of her new friend nuzzled her softly, neatening her mane back into place. "Template, stop this, y-you can't kill ponies like this!" She tried to stand, but Thelema pushed her back down. "I don't care how you justify this or how sorry you claim to be, this isn't who you're supposed to be or what you're supposed to do!" The Nightmare's mouth opened... and no words could come out in time before a wave of white-streaked indigo pounded into her and sent her tumbling across the grass.

"I suggest you stay down, Crown Princess."

"P-p-Princess Luna?!" Twilight started struggling to her hooves, looking on as the very Sovereign of the Night herself stood there, eyes narrowed and voice practically dripping venom as her horn pulsed with energy. "Thank the stars, I-I thought we---"

"Later, Twilight Sparkle. Attend to yourself and your friends while I teach this one some manners." Luna walked stiffly up to the gasping Nightmare, kicking her hard in the neck and sending her tumbling across the ground again. "I believe I told you to stay down. Weren't you listening, Crown Princess?" Her eyes and horn glowed as clouds parted, letting the gibbous moon shine down. "You are nothing more than a spoiled child in the throes of a tantrum, not even a proper goddess. Now, I am going to thoroughly ensure you remain immobile until the Bearers of the Elements are ready to fix your little fit. Be a good little doll and... and..." Suddenly, she clutched her head in stabbing pain, blood welling up from one nostril.

Thelema blinked in confusion, but took the chance she had been given. She lunged forward, her crackling horn scoring a smoking scrape across Luna's shoulder before she shoulder-tackled her back. The Princess cried out, but shook her affliction off and leapt backwards, another wave of starry darkness pulsing from her horn to push the Nightmare away. As Thelema fled, flying low over the ground, Luna followed; harsh blue-white lances of moonlight spewed from her horn, scoring the ground as her target dodged left and right. Finally she saw Thelema pulling up; she gave chase to her fleeing target. Up into the glowering stormclouds Thelema went, calling out bolts of lightning to strike at Luna. The dark Alicorn dodged them easily, closing in, but found the stormclouds were gathering around the Nightmare. When she burst though the grey thunderheads, she found herself in a swirling maelstrom of storms. Lightning flickered from cloud to cloud, and in this more confined space she found her dodges narrower and narrower. The blinding pain lanced into her skull again, and she faltered just enough.
Which is to say, she faltered far, far too much.
Thelema wheeled around and slammed into her, entangling her in the grasping strands of her electrified tail. As Luna struggled, she flew through tight packs of cloud shot through with lightning, letting her captive take the searing bolts again and again. She took her down, strafing over the ground to drag her along it back and forth, then started to climb. She powered straight up, wings making sounds like miniature thunderclaps as they beat the air. She went up, up, til the air became terribly thin, and paused for just a moment to admire the star-studded indigo sky.
"You did a very nice job tonight, Aunt Luna." She whispered, tears freezing on her face before she began to plummet. Her back legs held Luna head down as they screamed toward the ground, hitting terminal velocity and then accelerating as the wind pushed them harder, the air moved out of the way faster. A hundred feet above the ground, a deafening boom and a cone-shaped cloud marked their breaking the sound barrier.
The impact was just as loud, pieces of soil and rock flying into the air as goddess met ground. The crater steamed a little as Thelema left Luna there, trapped in the agonizing throes of whatever had turned a sure victory for good into a terrifying subversion.

"TWILIGHT!"

Thelema turned her head to look at where she'd left Twilight and company; Fluttershy was flying back to them, holding a tome in her hooves and going as fast as she could.

It was a pity, a tragedy, a heartbreak she'd live with forever.
<An entirely necessary one, sister. Put them down.>

---

Fluttershy frantically distributed the Elements. "N-Necklace, necklace, necklace, necklace, necklace, bi-big crown thingy... okay, that's all of t-them! W-what did I miss?"

"Miss?!" Rainbow Dash gritted her teeth. "She just powerbombed Princess Luna into the ground! We're in for it now, girls... Twi, we need to get her to lay still long enough to use the Elements. Got a strategy for us?"

Twilight leapt forward to shield the group against a shower of small bolts, then nodded. "I think I have one... Fluttershy, can you keep her distracted and then lead her into Pinkie's cannons? We'll be using them again."

"I-I... I... o-okay, just please try to be safe, all of you." The yellow pegasus bit her lip, wings quivering before she took off toward the weeping Nightmare. "T-Template dear, over here... oh, I don't want to die, I don't want to die..."

Thelema took off after her, mane and tail crackling with arcs of lightning. Occasionally, she flicked her horn and sent a small bolt or two out at her target, never managing to score a hit. It wasn't raining, but she felt wet drops smack against her face; it took a second to realize they were Fluttershy's terrified tears.

Fluttershy took her over the treetops in crazed, erratic patterns like a fleeing rabbit. She could see Thelema behind her, and twitched in terror at the sight of crackling arcs along her horn. She started weaving and dodging wildly as lances of lightning made her coat prickle as they passed, lacing the air with the sharp smell of ozone. After the fifth near miss, Fluttershy finally started climbing up, up, up; then she locked her wings and dropped like a stone. She didn't have Rainbow Dash's moves, so she couldn't pull up at the last minute; instead, she pulled up at a more reasonable distance to glide shallowly above the ground. Thelema fell right into pursuit.

Just like a good girl.

Buried in the ground, the Party Cannons were much harder to spot. The first one knocked Thelema back to land awkwardly on her hooves near one line, whose point-blank discharges smacked her right into the opposing broadside. Staggering drunkenly, she started to flap her wings, only to be thrown back by a pair of hooves straight to the middle of the ribcage; she'd not noticed AJ getting right under her in her dazed state, and toppled back and onto her side. AJ wasted no time in hitting her again, again, a fourth time; she thought she heard something crack.

Stumbling and coughing ichor, Thelema cried out and fell to her knees when she felt a quartet of hooves right on her back, then saw a pink pony front-flip off her back; in midair, Pinkamena brought all four hooves together. At the same moment, Rainbow Dash arced up just in front of her and pushed off her hooves to slice past Thelema's side. Over and over she hit her, swarming over her so fast one might think there were more than one of her. Flying as high as she could in the time she had, the cyan pegasus made a U-turn and screamed toward the ground, breaking the chromasonic barrier less than five meters from the Nightmare. A deafening crack rolled over everypony as a Sonic Rainboom took place, throwing a prismatic blast wave out from the steaming crater where Thelema struggled to her hooves as Rainbow Dash scrambled away.

Winds swirled and contracted around her, and all noise momentarily sucked into silence as she disappeared; reappearing in the air above Twilight, she gave a pained shriek and hurled her lightning-wreathed body, dirty and leaking ichor, at the smaller Alicorn. A chunk of wood blocked her charge, pushing her aside as Rarity charged in. "If you think I'll let you hurt Twilight, then you're more insane than Nightmare Moon!" Rarity forced her to the ground, standing beside Twilight. The pair began to work in tandem, with Rarity using chunks of the dead tree to shield Twilight and batter the Nightmare as her friend hammered away with bolts of pure magical force.

Thelema fell to her knees, but everypony knew that wasn't enough to keep her down, not yet. Rarity's anger started to fall away as she lifted two heavy chunks of timber above her target, and for just a moment she hesitated, looking at the miserable, weeping, bleeding wreck before her... but the thing was building up an electrical charge over its horn, trying to rise and level a bolt at her. Trying to forget for just a second the silly grey mare who had crushed on her so obviously that afternoon, Rarity closed her eyes.

"I'm sorry, I don't want to do this but I have to... I never wanted it this way, I..." Thelema---Template---kept whimpering even as she clumsily hurled a blast of air and crackling sparks a meter over Rarity's shoulder.

"You and I both, darling." The wood came down with a thud and a gut-churning snap.

Twilight nuzzled Rarity quickly. "Let's get this over with before there's more hurt..." She closed her eyes with her friends, feeling a magical thrum as their Elements began to glow; they hovered in the air before the struggling, limp-winged Nightmare. Twilight's eyes snapped open in blazing white, and a typhoon of rainbow-colored light cascaded over the broken monster. When it faded, tottering on her hooves was a grey golem mare, looking terribly small. She tried to speak, retched, and collapsed on her side, passed out but unhurt.

A Nightmare defeated, a new friend saved.

Comments

[Alex Warlorn]

Sadly I haven't seen season 3 yet.

[NineOneThree]

3033008
Ah, well.
I can't think of much that's relevant from that season to my fic, other than Non-Jerk Discord and the inevitable PRONCOSS TWOOLOOT, which itself already has a character tag on this site.
*shrugging happens*